Having a journal or a diary turned into a basic need to have after 2020, and it helps every young (or not) person ever since to navigate and sustain their good mental health level, alongside generally plan future on their own terms. It is impressive how amazing gen-z is at it. YouTube is stacked with videos on productivity and how to have a diary or a journal on both recording your life and also taking control over your narrative and making sure your dreams come true. It’s not an innovation in life, nor it is in cinema. Diaries have always been a trustworthy and candid narrator and also a conflict point in many stories (a valuable lesson from that: don’t put in words things that might testify against you in court). Starting mostly with the purposes of romanticisation, girls across different decades and cultures passionately and religiously pin down both their words and artefacts in small and trusted books that keep their everything and capture their world on their own terms, unlike their living that is dictated by the rules of the adults in their lives. So what are these worlds and how did this representation changed over the past five years?
Of course, journals have always been there, and diaries. Starting from medieval historic manuscripts, biographical scripture in ancient Egyptian pyramids to Jane Austen’s study of women’s life, not to exclude traditional scientific journals. What about culture today? It didn’t all start from the Burn Book in Mean Girls (2004). One of the most cult diary that probably affected contemporary culture (mostly Western I presume) to this day is Bram Stocker’s Dracula. A cult novel on exploring passion and sexuality (responding to the disease of its time – syphilis) that has been revised and reinterpreted in cinema, art and music for so many times over the past century that it is one of the pillar for the ways we explore our desires. None the less famous and some sort of fanfiction of it by an amazing American author Dodie Belamy, Mina Harker’s Diary approaches same aspects of passion but from the perspective on AIDS in San Francisco of the late 1980s and 1990s, for example. In this novel or rather a self-fiction or a performative writing (depends on who you ask) a young woman captures her life, passions, sex and worries over her partner in a very honest and mystical narration.
So let’s begin this exploration of diaries in films with a classic! A teen girl book of secrets like in LOL (2009), a French original with Sophie Marceau as Lola’s mom (and Christa Théret as Lola), where Lola writes everything. Notes on her kisses, her first time and glues her artefacts in there; thinking that hiding it underneath a pile of messy clothes in her wardrobe is more secure than a safe in her mother’s house. Another one, an opening scene of the very first episode of Derry Girls (2018 – 2022), where we hear Erin’s diary entry in the voice-over to the beat of the Cranberries, just for Erin to be awaken with her cousin’s voice and for us to realise that her cousin is violating Erin’s privacy with reading her diary (although, we never really see this diary again). The TV sitcom captures the 1990s in Nothern Island and its teenagers with their dreams and goals amidst the military actions. This type of diary shares a common thread of a study of one’s newly discovered and passionate (perhaps, even overwhelming) thoughts and feelings. As it states a stereotypical truth – every teenage girl has a diary (or rather must), and that we are about to embarke on the journey of discovering someone making a lot of mistakes and having first times doing many adult things. Even another world’s famous diary – if we look at Anna Frank’s diary as a trope for the film ones – doesn’t really capture any notes on boys and cupid arrows, is still focused on tackling with emotions and worrying of a teenager, although in very different circumstances to a Western romcom.
Coming back to cinema, if another classic Notebook (2004) doesn’t really lead us anywhere, except for tracing and repeating a great story, a diary like Bridget Jones’s (2001 – 2025) records and explores one’s situationships leaving them with an open end for the characters to make their choices. But it also captures a transitional period in the characters life. Same as with Emily in Paris (2020 – now) (probably the only pandemic release that is still alive), but now Emily has an Instagram account for that. When Bridget still sticks to her trusted red book in the last film. There is also a rip-off with a messed-up ‘Emily’ that stayed in the USA, starring Zooey Deutch in Not Okay (2022). On the subject of an influencer as a study case, it has been explored before with playing on stereotypes as in Ingrid Goes West (2017) and also its first origins in contemporary art with a controversial work of Amalia Ulman in 2014 (who had done it first, before it became our reality...). This seems rather a norm than an eccentricity today, and some filmmakers are rather keen to explore the toxic part of how we evaluate our and other people’s social status via social media.
Another lockdown hit, All the Boys I’ve Ever Loved Before (2018), explores romanticisations of teenage girls and the related situstionships. We also have a hybrid of how a journal is tracked with days and is from a male perspective in 500 Days of Summer (2009) with a very painful story of love and growth. Perhaps, teenagers or people in a stage of their personal growth have been a particular interest because of the sense of exploration that it brings. As with Emma Stone in Easy A (2010), which has been one of the memorable parts of this successful Hollywood producer and an Oscar winner actress. In the film, Olive has a video blog that she logs in and honestly tells about her social experimentation in order to learn more about herself in the first place.
A rather influential coming-of-age TV series of the last few years Sex Education (2019 – 2023) (btw, the actors from which are in most of the currently popular and big films) brings focus from teenager’s life as a secret to a community-shared issues that characters help each other with. Even to the point, that the writing of one of the characters is being staged as a school play. With social media platforms being an important part of our lives and a main source for the information during the lockdowns with the need for massive waves of political issues being shared, global online community as something inclusive and not limited to just particular counter culture groups became a norm. So happened with the stories that were on screen since then. As the exploration became a shared experience, so did the journaling (to certain extend). If dragging the idea of it, even in the recent global hit Severance (2022 – now), the co-workers uncovering their mysterious work place together.
Could we also suggest that there is a trace of it from Stranger Things (2016 – 2025), with how horror and community-topics also reflected in the popular culture? Perhaps. Similarly to this community exploration that is mentioned above, a beloved by the audience and critics Yellowjackets (2021– now), a thriller and a detective, explores a shared experience and knowledge set in the 1990s. A feminist thriller with some horror genre elements (that this TV series is too) became a major focus as a genre over the past couple of years. And last year, seemingly being declared as a year of many good horror films (Longlegs (2024), MaXXXine (2024), Substance (2024), Nightbitch (2024), Tiger Stripes (2023) among others). The female characters are less dreamy, they hands-on explore themselves while embracing all passion and emotions.
One of the leaders of the UK bestselling books from a fiction list (and not a self-help non-fiction) was I’m a Fan a debut novel by Sheena Patel. The book is a combination of it all and translates 2020s better than anything. It is a rage story, a jealousy story and a tale of envying another woman. The main character is female and she is far from saint: she stalks her competitor on social media, she is confused with what’s happening in her life, which is explicitly confessed in this some sort of diary. But, not necessarily finds a way out. A very anti-happy end, a perhaps a very post-2020 one.
The diaries are the stories in the first place and sometimes they don’t get a part as prominent in their adaptation as they had in the original source as with Dracula, the novel, and Coppola’s 1992 adaptation. We also have a denial to a diary and transformation of it into a voice-over in a cancelled-today classic Twilight (2008). Another adaptation, the Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), prominently states Logan Lerman’s character having a huge interest in writing but doesn’t really records that and rather places the film with this approach in the pile with characters as writers-observers (let’s think of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Great Gatsby stories-slash-adaptations). This draws a line in the purposes of the diaries on screen and acknowledges its function as a tool or a character that sets a tone, tells us about the character or (as I suggested earlier) just a fun and dramatic plot twist (Mamma Mia! (2008) ).
However, if outside romantic lines or girlhood (think Cher’s fluffy pencil in Clueless (1995) ), this element isn’t allowed. Let’s remember Fight Club (1999) and its narration. Undoubtedly, there is a huge genre and a tradition of a film essay-diaries, for example, as with many Nanni Moretti’s films. But they seem to go beyond the subject of this writing. Nonetheless, journaling seems as one of the revival elements from the fashion of the 90s and Y2K that has come back (think Cher’s fluffy pink pencil again). Although, perhaps, at times it catches us in the dilemma of a chicken and an egg, and makes wonder if the trend of Y2K came with the need for journaling.
Social media platforms definitely became a norm and a must element in the films since the pandemic. In every other film, we see characters checking their social networks’ feeds, perishing over their contents and using it as a tool to stalk or project on, just like with purposes in real life that we all share. The content of films that exapand on topics of personal growth, especially with teenage girls in focus, doesn’t seem to change, rather expands and becomes unapologetic (in its good ways). The films shift their attention to community-based formations and focus more on social agenda than before. Although, these 1990s and 2000s films have a cult following and a great impact on Western popular culture, they seem to be a part of a charm that stayed with the 1990s and 2000s and being replicated on Halloween and in TikTok cores. When the new films appear to be more focused on new perspectives, social boundaries and mixture of genres outside of the staples that existed before the pandemic.
Films mentioned:
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
LOL (2009)
Mean Girls (2004)
Derry Girls (2018 – 2022)
Notebook (2004)
Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)
Emily in Paris (2020 – now)
Not Okay (2022)
Ingrid Goes West (2017)
All the Boys I’ve Ever Loved Before (2018)
500 Days of Summer (2009)
Easy A (2010)
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)
Twilight (2008)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Mamma Mia! (2008)
Clueless (1995)
Fight Club (1999)
Dear Diary (1993)
Of course, journals have always been there, and diaries. Starting from medieval historic manuscripts, biographical scripture in ancient Egyptian pyramids to Jane Austen’s study of women’s life, not to exclude traditional scientific journals. What about culture today? It didn’t all start from the Burn Book in Mean Girls (2004). One of the most cult diary that probably affected contemporary culture (mostly Western I presume) to this day is Bram Stocker’s Dracula. A cult novel on exploring passion and sexuality (responding to the disease of its time – syphilis) that has been revised and reinterpreted in cinema, art and music for so many times over the past century that it is one of the pillar for the ways we explore our desires. None the less famous and some sort of fanfiction of it by an amazing American author Dodie Belamy, Mina Harker’s Diary approaches same aspects of passion but from the perspective on AIDS in San Francisco of the late 1980s and 1990s, for example. In this novel or rather a self-fiction or a performative writing (depends on who you ask) a young woman captures her life, passions, sex and worries over her partner in a very honest and mystical narration.
So let’s begin this exploration of diaries in films with a classic! A teen girl book of secrets like in LOL (2009), a French original with Sophie Marceau as Lola’s mom (and Christa Théret as Lola), where Lola writes everything. Notes on her kisses, her first time and glues her artefacts in there; thinking that hiding it underneath a pile of messy clothes in her wardrobe is more secure than a safe in her mother’s house. Another one, an opening scene of the very first episode of Derry Girls (2018 – 2022), where we hear Erin’s diary entry in the voice-over to the beat of the Cranberries, just for Erin to be awaken with her cousin’s voice and for us to realise that her cousin is violating Erin’s privacy with reading her diary (although, we never really see this diary again). The TV sitcom captures the 1990s in Nothern Island and its teenagers with their dreams and goals amidst the military actions. This type of diary shares a common thread of a study of one’s newly discovered and passionate (perhaps, even overwhelming) thoughts and feelings. As it states a stereotypical truth – every teenage girl has a diary (or rather must), and that we are about to embarke on the journey of discovering someone making a lot of mistakes and having first times doing many adult things. Even another world’s famous diary – if we look at Anna Frank’s diary as a trope for the film ones – doesn’t really capture any notes on boys and cupid arrows, is still focused on tackling with emotions and worrying of a teenager, although in very different circumstances to a Western romcom.
Coming back to cinema, if another classic Notebook (2004) doesn’t really lead us anywhere, except for tracing and repeating a great story, a diary like Bridget Jones’s (2001 – 2025) records and explores one’s situationships leaving them with an open end for the characters to make their choices. But it also captures a transitional period in the characters life. Same as with Emily in Paris (2020 – now) (probably the only pandemic release that is still alive), but now Emily has an Instagram account for that. When Bridget still sticks to her trusted red book in the last film. There is also a rip-off with a messed-up ‘Emily’ that stayed in the USA, starring Zooey Deutch in Not Okay (2022). On the subject of an influencer as a study case, it has been explored before with playing on stereotypes as in Ingrid Goes West (2017) and also its first origins in contemporary art with a controversial work of Amalia Ulman in 2014 (who had done it first, before it became our reality...). This seems rather a norm than an eccentricity today, and some filmmakers are rather keen to explore the toxic part of how we evaluate our and other people’s social status via social media.
Another lockdown hit, All the Boys I’ve Ever Loved Before (2018), explores romanticisations of teenage girls and the related situstionships. We also have a hybrid of how a journal is tracked with days and is from a male perspective in 500 Days of Summer (2009) with a very painful story of love and growth. Perhaps, teenagers or people in a stage of their personal growth have been a particular interest because of the sense of exploration that it brings. As with Emma Stone in Easy A (2010), which has been one of the memorable parts of this successful Hollywood producer and an Oscar winner actress. In the film, Olive has a video blog that she logs in and honestly tells about her social experimentation in order to learn more about herself in the first place.
A rather influential coming-of-age TV series of the last few years Sex Education (2019 – 2023) (btw, the actors from which are in most of the currently popular and big films) brings focus from teenager’s life as a secret to a community-shared issues that characters help each other with. Even to the point, that the writing of one of the characters is being staged as a school play. With social media platforms being an important part of our lives and a main source for the information during the lockdowns with the need for massive waves of political issues being shared, global online community as something inclusive and not limited to just particular counter culture groups became a norm. So happened with the stories that were on screen since then. As the exploration became a shared experience, so did the journaling (to certain extend). If dragging the idea of it, even in the recent global hit Severance (2022 – now), the co-workers uncovering their mysterious work place together.
Could we also suggest that there is a trace of it from Stranger Things (2016 – 2025), with how horror and community-topics also reflected in the popular culture? Perhaps. Similarly to this community exploration that is mentioned above, a beloved by the audience and critics Yellowjackets (2021– now), a thriller and a detective, explores a shared experience and knowledge set in the 1990s. A feminist thriller with some horror genre elements (that this TV series is too) became a major focus as a genre over the past couple of years. And last year, seemingly being declared as a year of many good horror films (Longlegs (2024), MaXXXine (2024), Substance (2024), Nightbitch (2024), Tiger Stripes (2023) among others). The female characters are less dreamy, they hands-on explore themselves while embracing all passion and emotions.
One of the leaders of the UK bestselling books from a fiction list (and not a self-help non-fiction) was I’m a Fan a debut novel by Sheena Patel. The book is a combination of it all and translates 2020s better than anything. It is a rage story, a jealousy story and a tale of envying another woman. The main character is female and she is far from saint: she stalks her competitor on social media, she is confused with what’s happening in her life, which is explicitly confessed in this some sort of diary. But, not necessarily finds a way out. A very anti-happy end, a perhaps a very post-2020 one.
The diaries are the stories in the first place and sometimes they don’t get a part as prominent in their adaptation as they had in the original source as with Dracula, the novel, and Coppola’s 1992 adaptation. We also have a denial to a diary and transformation of it into a voice-over in a cancelled-today classic Twilight (2008). Another adaptation, the Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), prominently states Logan Lerman’s character having a huge interest in writing but doesn’t really records that and rather places the film with this approach in the pile with characters as writers-observers (let’s think of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Great Gatsby stories-slash-adaptations). This draws a line in the purposes of the diaries on screen and acknowledges its function as a tool or a character that sets a tone, tells us about the character or (as I suggested earlier) just a fun and dramatic plot twist (Mamma Mia! (2008) ).
However, if outside romantic lines or girlhood (think Cher’s fluffy pencil in Clueless (1995) ), this element isn’t allowed. Let’s remember Fight Club (1999) and its narration. Undoubtedly, there is a huge genre and a tradition of a film essay-diaries, for example, as with many Nanni Moretti’s films. But they seem to go beyond the subject of this writing. Nonetheless, journaling seems as one of the revival elements from the fashion of the 90s and Y2K that has come back (think Cher’s fluffy pink pencil again). Although, perhaps, at times it catches us in the dilemma of a chicken and an egg, and makes wonder if the trend of Y2K came with the need for journaling.
Social media platforms definitely became a norm and a must element in the films since the pandemic. In every other film, we see characters checking their social networks’ feeds, perishing over their contents and using it as a tool to stalk or project on, just like with purposes in real life that we all share. The content of films that exapand on topics of personal growth, especially with teenage girls in focus, doesn’t seem to change, rather expands and becomes unapologetic (in its good ways). The films shift their attention to community-based formations and focus more on social agenda than before. Although, these 1990s and 2000s films have a cult following and a great impact on Western popular culture, they seem to be a part of a charm that stayed with the 1990s and 2000s and being replicated on Halloween and in TikTok cores. When the new films appear to be more focused on new perspectives, social boundaries and mixture of genres outside of the staples that existed before the pandemic.
Films mentioned:
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
LOL (2009)
Mean Girls (2004)
Derry Girls (2018 – 2022)
Notebook (2004)
Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)
Emily in Paris (2020 – now)
Not Okay (2022)
Ingrid Goes West (2017)
All the Boys I’ve Ever Loved Before (2018)
500 Days of Summer (2009)
Easy A (2010)
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)
Twilight (2008)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Mamma Mia! (2008)
Clueless (1995)
Fight Club (1999)
Dear Diary (1993)
Thank you for reading!
Yours,
5TO9 FC TEAM